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Hot Web Matter, an anagram of
Matthew Obert.

Matt Obert
modus at as220 dot org

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    "I believe it is appropriate here for me to interject a note of personal acknowledgement regarding not only the consistent professionalism I have observed and admire in your performance of various roles in the organization's operations but the general affability you manage to maintain in the often swirling chaos and overwhelming darkness of life at AS220. I firmly believe that your combination of skills and attitude could serve as a great model for much of the general populace in this little corner of the world."
    -- Edward de Boo to Matt Obert, April 17, 2003

    Tue, 06 Sep 2005
    Black Helicopters of Love
    by Josh Marketos
    C
    Black helicopter in the sky
    C
    Above the mountains and the motels
    C                      G
    And the militiamen you fly
    G                         C
    How does it feel to be so high?
    
    C
    Black helicopter, can't you see
    C
    That from a distance all the John Does
    C                       G
    Look a lot like you and me
    G                         G
    How does it feel to be so free?
    
    Bm                               Am
    And I know that some may call it treason
    Bm                             Am
    How they would love to see you fall
    Bm                                 Am
    But I know there's just one simple reason
    Am                         C
    It's 'cause they've got no helicopters
    C                 G
    No helicopters at all
    G      C
    No helicopters
    C                 G
    No helicopters at all
    G      C
    No helicopters
       Am        G         C
    Oh no ... oh no ... oh no ...
    
    Black helicopter up above
    I hear your motor, I know your rotor singas a simple song of love
    Just like the heartbeat of a dove
    
    Black helicopter in the night
    With infrared and ultraviolet I know you're keeping up the fight
    With all your dreams in black and white
    
    And I know that some may call it treason
    How they would love to see you fall
    But I know there's just one simple reason, it's 'cause
    They've got no helicopters
    No helicopters at all
    No helicopters
    No helicopters at all
    No helicopters
    Oh no ... oh no ... oh no ...
    

    /wordplay


    Fri, 19 Aug 2005
    I'm Stoppable

    (c) 2005 Matt Obert.
    All Rights Reserved
    All Wrongs Reversed

    I'm Stoppable


    My flow is guarded / My rhymes are retarded
    Suckers try to stop me, but I never got started
    I'm guarded / Retarded / I never got started
    Tried to get in the hip hop club, I got carded

    'cause I'm stoppable
    I'm stoppable (x3)

    It's time I faced it / My efforts are wasted
    Put too many rhymes in a line, I cut and pasted
    I chased it / Could taste it / Misplaced it / Erased it
    Tried to get away with a crime, but I got maced, it's

    'cause I'm stoppable
    I'm stoppable (x3)

    "It's raining, it's pouring" / Lyrically I'm boring
    Hear my beats bump and all the ladies start snoring
    Ignoring / All the useless energy I'm storing
    Tried to be a pimp, but I ended up whoring

    'cause I'm stoppable
    I'm stoppable (x3)

    Someone tell the drummer to give me a break

    Oh, this beat is hard
    This beat is so hard
    This beat is too hard
    It's hard!

    And so my flow is guarded / My rhymes are retarded
    Suckers try to stop me, but I never got started
    I'm guarded / Retarded / I never got started
    Tried to get
    in the hip hop club
    but I got car . . .
    ded . . .
    'cause . . .
    I'm . . .

    /wordplay


    Tue, 09 Aug 2005

    Headline: Magnolia Electric Co. Makes Lightning Work

    Subhead: At AS220 on August 11, with Grand Buffet and Joey Beats

    Byline: Exclusive Interview for The Agenda by Matt Obert


    Pull Quote: The light isn't necessarily the one thing that you'll remember. It could be the wolf, or it could be the dark, or it could be the moon.


    Ten years ago, a shadowy figure rode into Providence, RI from the badlands of Oberlin, Ohio—diminutive in stature, wearing a cowboy hat, worn corduroys and square-toed loafers, with a four-string tenor guitar slung over his shoulder. Of those who met him at pizza joints and used-record sales during the summer of 1995, few knew that his real name was Jason Molina. (He preferred to introduce himself as “Sparky,” and also mysteriously acquired the nickname “The Guardian.”) Unless you have a copy of the flexidisc released with Wingnut fanzine #3, you've probably never heard Sparky belting his heart out at the Milhous co-op, accompanied by legendary Providence drummer Joe Propatier (Sourpuss, Scarce, Silver Apples, Bevis Frond, etc.) Not long after his departure from Providence, Molina's star began its rise to the heavens when Will Oldham released the first Songs:Ohia recording on his Palace Records imprint.


    Since then, Songs:Ohia has carved out a niche in alt-country territory, as Molina courted collaborations with such luminaries as Edith Frost (on Axxess and Aces) and Scotland's Arab Strap (on The Lioness) for his ever-expanding portfolio of releases on Bloomington, Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian Records. The production and instrumentation has varied, but the prevailing mood has been melancholy, with porch-rock numbers driven by Molina's winsome tenor yowling.


    With his new band, Magnolia Electric Co., Jason Molina has left the porch far behind. Their latest full-length, What Comes After The Blues, opens with “The Dark Don't Hide It,” a rootsy rocker in the grand tradition of The Band or Crazy Horse, boasting the balls-out production of studio legend Steve Albini. All the songs on the album are inspired in some way by the Hank Williams tune “I Saw The Light.” It may be a literal light—like the moon, or neon—or a moment of mental clarity or spiritual epiphany, depending on the context of the song, but each track is equally suffused with the same blinding light.

    Read more ...

    /agenda


    Fri, 10 Jun 2005

    Headline: All The Bells And Whistles

    Subhead: Mudboy Manhandles PPAC's Mighty Wurlitzer

    Byline: Matt Obert

    Pull Quote: The Mighty Wurlitzer is endowed with staggering power—enough to make the Wizard of Oz look like a Punch-and-Judy puppeteer.


    The Providence Performing Arts Center is a perfectly-preserved vaudeville-era cathedral, and its beating heart is the Mighty Wurlitzer. On stage right (or house left, if you are in the audience) sits the console which controls a vintage pipe organ built in 1927. It's a massive affair—one of the three largest organs of its type in the world—with five rows of keyboards, crowned at the top by a double arc of red and white stop tabs like a candy-cane halo.

    But pay attention to the machine behind that curtain: the console is only the control panel for a bewildering array of wind-powered whatchamacallits—whistles, bells, chimes, gongs, cymbals, snares, absurd buzzers, even a giant marimba—hidden behind titanic grilles on either side of the stage. Somewhere in the wings, or backstage, or in the basement below, a turbine blower as big as a compact car serves as the lungs of the clockwork contraption. When the air pressure builds up, the instrument is endowed with staggering power—enough to make the Wizard of Oz look like a Punch-and-Judy puppeteer.

    For Raphael Lyon, who plays a custom-built electric organ under the moniker mudboy, it was love at first sight. He knew that he had to compose music for this unique instrument. Thanks to the cooperation of PPAC, and a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, his dream came true at seven o'clock on Wednesday, June 8, 2005.

    Read more ...

    /agenda


    Sun, 17 Apr 2005
    Baby's First Breakbeat
    I've always meant to start using my computers to create music, but my stubborn insistence on using all Open Source / Free Software operating systems and tools has left me a bit jealous of my friends with their proprietary noisemaking toys: Acid, Vegas, Fruity Loops, Garage Band, etc.

    Well, no more! Last night, I popped a Knoppix Linux Live CD into my workstation and started goofing around with Audacity, a surprisingly mature and full-featured audio editing program which is available for Windows 98 and newer, Mac OS X, Linux, and other UNIX-like operating systems.

    I decided to start with the venerable "Amen, Brother" drum break -- one of the most popular samples in history. A little googling for "amen brother wav" landed me here, although there are many other online archives of breakbeat samples (and if I ever get tired of using the same raw materials as everyone else, I can record my own samples.)

    And the fruit of my efforts? Well, it's no pop hit, but I guess it's a proof of concept:

    /audio


    Wed, 06 Apr 2005

    Take These And Call Me In The Morning

    by Matt Obert

    When three new local releases from three excellent local bands, each worthy of an in-depth feature article, arrive simultaneously, and their arrival coincides with the deadline for a new biweekly newspaper, there's only one thing to do: write three capsule reviews and hope for more ink in the second issue!

    Mahi Mahi (Re)Move Your Body (Corleone)

    The soundtrack to a cyberpunk spy flick never filmed, (Re)Move Your Body lurches to life and staggers across a gleaming stainless dancefloor in an eerie neon Tron-scape, like a malfunctioning cyborg obscenely popping and locking its numb legs to the glitchy chatter of its own leaking memory, a machine with a human pulse.

    The robot meets the agents at Gate Nine, and they are dressed in Miami Vice white. Like all secret agents, they have guns. (They may, if you prefer, have qualities commonly attributed to guns: the dispassionate coolness of gray gunmetal, the velocity of hot lead.) The agents, speaking through a vocoder to disguise their voices, decrypt the message: “Strap these roses to your body, march in and blow them all away.” Fade to black.

    The beat comes back. A quick montage: a kick drum, a synth stand, a floor tom, a drum pad, a white suit, a high hat, a black box, a microphone, and a ticking briefcase about to explode in a cascade of rose petals, all lit in flickering red and blue strobe light.

    For best results, listen with mirrored shades.

    $12.00 ppd from Corleone Records, PO Box 65, Providence, RI 02901, or online:

    http://www.corleonerecords.com/catalog.asp
    http://mahimahimahi.com


    Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores The Quiet Room (Cuneiform Records)

    An angry shaft of sunlight impales dust motes in the warm and heavy air, pinning a wretched hangover to tangled and sweaty blankets, as The Quiet Room opens with “Simian Fanfare” (fifteen seconds of retching analog synthesizer, bleating alarm clock and throbbing jaw harp) before tapping the snooze bar and plunging the listener back into the dark dream of “The Night It Rained Glass On Onion Street.” Those fifteen seconds are a fair warning: there are plenty of midnights and thunderstorms to be found here, circus trains and gypsy caravans, and would-be evangelists with stained teeth on the 99 bus, but this is not the sort of quiet room where a milk-skinned maiden strums a gut-strung guitar and croons “Kum Ba Ya.”

    Yet there is beauty here as well, from the minimalist phase piece “Morphine Drip” to the Eastern European folk (via fuzztone prog-rock) of “Bulgarian Skin Mechanic.” And there is mystery here, for this puzzling band boasts strings (upright bass, cello, viola, violin, guitar), horns (French horn, alto sax), keys (accordion, piano, Hammond B3 organ), percussion (drum kit, hand cymbals, floor tom, glockenspiel, cowbell, bells, maracas, tambourine, brake drums, pots & pans), and special effects (analog and digital electronics, handheld tape recorder, bowed cymbals, alarm clock, telephone, paper cutter.)

    Yes, Alec K. Redfearn, perhaps the most prolific and least predictable accordionist ever to crawl out of Mansfield, Massachusetts, has outdone himself again, this time by marrying the experimental improvisation of his instrumental ensemble Barnacled with the eclectic avant-trad and fake-folk tunes of the Eyesores.

    Available from Cuneiform Records, P.O. Box 8427, Silver Spring MD 20907-8427, or on the web:

    http://www.cuneiformrecords.com
    http://www.aleckredfearn.com


    Superchief Trio The Devil Knows Me Better (Needlenose Music)

    Lowdown and dirty barrelhouse jump blues with a twist of mischievous wit, the Superchief Trio is the perfect soundtrack to a night of drinking, dancing, and sandwiches. Wait a minute, did I say sandwiches?

    That would be “Bop Wah Wah,” Keith Munslow's soulful ode to sad, solitary sandwiches, and it's only one of fourteen foot-stomping original piano blues tunes on Superchief's debut disc.

    Still, referring to this CD as a “debut” is a bit misleading: Pam Murray's smooth and sultry vocals have moved to the forefront in this incarnation, but she's the same trombone player who accompanied Munslow in Neo-'90s Dance Band and Smoking Jackets. John Cote has been playing with Mr. Munslow for even longer: before he replaced V. Majestic's Stu Powers as the Neo-'90s drummer, he and Munslow had worn the foam puppet heads in Erminio Pinque's Big Nazo Band.

    A few special guests enliven this recording: Thom Enright shreds on slide guitar for “Bop Wah Wah,” while Marty Ballou lends upright bass punch to Munslow's left piano hand on “Big Blue Chair” and “Say Baby That Way.” Meanwhile, tenor and baritone saxophonist Geoff Adams (also a hornblower for Smoking Jackets and Neo-'90s) is reunited with Keith and Pam on “Head So Big” and “You Surprised Me.”

    Perhaps we can expect the Superchief Trio to share the stage with some of the same guests when they celebrate the release of The Devil Knows Me Better on Saturday, February 26th at 8:00 pm at the Blackstone River Theatre (549 Broad Street, Cumberland – www.riverfolk.org). Admission is $10. Dress as fancy as you please, but make sure you're dressed to dance.

    http://www.superchieftrio.com
    http://www.keithmunslow.com

    /agenda


    Thu, 24 Mar 2005
    Pulp Fiction at the Green Room

    SUBHEAD: Three reviews in one

    BYLINE: The Colonel, Ashley Mercado, and Matt Obert


    SUBHEAD: I Has a Needs, for the Stumbleweeds

    by The Colonel


    Man, working in a busy little bar in Rhode Island isn’t exactly what I thought I’d be doin’ after being in the trenches for so many years. Especially after traveling all over the world and havin’ my life flash before my eyes more than once. Somehow ending up here in Providence makes the whole trip just that much more exciting.


    See, most people wouldn’t think twice that loading cases of beer in the storage room of a local rock ‘n’ roll bar could be exciting. What’s exciting about haulin’ booze around, you may ask? Well, listening to great music while you do it definitely helps. See, my ears were perked up to the upbeat sounds of a twangin’ and bouncin’, honky-tonkin’, country-a-billying, rock-n-rollin’ band being amplified by the ventilation duct in the storage room. Wait a minute. Am I in Rhode Island, or did the time machine just autopilot me to Ernest Tubbs’ Saturday Nite Jamboree, Nashville, Tennessee?


    I just got the blast of energy I need to get me through my long shift. I haul the beer to the other cooler with the sounds of Desperation and Salvation ringing in my ears. The sound of the band just sucks me right in. My Dad used to call this stuff “Okie music.” You sure don’t hear those new modern country bands playing this stuff. No watering down the drinks with this outfit. Straight up, no chaser, just the way it should be. Old time raw guitar, sweet and raspy vocals right up in yer face and the upright bass and stand-up drums are slappin’ and flat-tire-ing their way to the promised land.


    I can’t think of a better way to get warmed up for a night of drinking, dancin’ and romancing than the Stumbleweeds on stage.


    I’ve only got a few minutes to check these guys and a gal out as I walk around the room pickin’ up empty bottles actin’ like I’m helpin’ out the bartender. I can’t help boppin’ my head and snappin’ my fingers. I don’t want the boss to notice that I’m havin’ fun on the job. This band just made my night. I love the tunes and got a new swing in my step as I scoot back into the cooler to get more cold ones for the patrons and listen to the sounds of the Old South echo through the walls.


    SUBHEAD: Bitten by the Cobramatics

    by Ashley Mercado


    I stroll through the Green Room and listen. A man brushes past me with a case of beer on his shoulder. I glance long enough to see he’s hot from movement, and not looking at his feet but the stage. I order a drink from the bartendress, and she tips her eyes not to me but to the man standing on stage and singing like a loon. A woman sways next to me. I pause and to notice she’s moving to the sounds that filter from the stage. I lean with my back to the bar to refocus my direction and join everyone in their concentration on the stage.


    That boy can sing. That man can play guitar. That gent sure bangs the upright well.


    I continue to stand, watch, and attend. I am thinking about eating, shooting and leaving. But I maintain my ground and hold a breath for the boy that steps off the stage, into the crowd while he hollers a song, and the band beats behind him like alcoholics in the age of prohibition. The crowd is drunk from the sound and the booze. I hold my stance without a twitch and think about the lonely lyrics. I watch those men on stage humping their instruments like it’s a sex-show-orgy free to the crowd, even though it was a solid seven dollars to get in.


    The Cobramatics siphon their poison-music all over this green room and everyone seems to enjoy the concoction that is mixed evenly by the three spinners on stage and filtered like happy-gas through the PA system. I watch a man pass by me, a weird bulge under his suit jacket, and he looks haggard with the weight of purpose. His eyes don’t leave the stage, though his direction continues to move away from the source of his concentration.


    The boy that sings like hell-fire steps back up on the stage and leans over the crowd to beat it into them he’s the one with the mic. The crowd leans back and lets that voice wash over them like air. The guitarist, I see, has a smile with purchase and I sense from him he is right now where he is happiest. And to me this is believable. The up-right bassist continues to command the strings and neck of his companion instrument.


    As I stand and watch I realize that the Cobramatics never forget about the audience. They look, move, sing, and play to the crowd – they never turn their backs, they never focus on their hands, they never do anything but entertain, and they do it well.


    SUBHEAD: A Hell of a Hayride

    by Matt Obert


    A gangly guy brushes against my shoulder, momentarily rearranging the snub-nosed pistol holstered under my jacket. This place is crowded. Somebody sent me here to ask the stockboy a few questions, but I can't do it in front of all these people.


    Shit. Who is that dame in the red feather boa? She's been staring at me all through the opening acts. Does she know who I am? I'd better play it cool.


    I sidle up to the bartender and order my usual boilermaker. The whiskey hits me like a freight train, and I'm sipping my beer chaser when Louisiana Hayride takes the stage and erupts in a fireball of '50s-style Memphis retro-rock. Sounds like Elvis, I think to myself, but with better guitar solos. The band is hotter than hellfire tonight. Still, it would be nice if they played more obscure Elvis tunes. More Carl Perkins, maybe.


    Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the stockboy headed for the stairs, reminding me that I've got a job to do. The beer goes down in one long gulp. I slam the empty pint glass on the bar and follow the stockboy downstairs.


    Of course, he's down here to smoke a cigarette. Smoking in the bar is no longer allowed in this state. But I've got no time to worry about the legality of the situation. I follow the fellow out the front door and roughly shoulder him around the corner, reaching under my jacket to pull out the pistol. I cock the hammer and jab the nightclub employee in the ribs with the business end of the gun. “Keep cool,” I bark in a hoarse whisper. “I gotta ask you a few questions.”


    That upright bass player from Louisiana Hayride,” I continue. “Wasn't he in the Stumbleweeds too?” The stockboy is rattled, but he manages to murmur his assent. “Isn't that Jack Hanlon from the Amazing Crowns, the Mole People and Flower Gang?” I hiss, poking the stockboy's ribcage to punctuate the band names. “Y-yeah, that's him,” the stockboy stammers.


    And the guitarist from the Stumbleweeds,” I mutter. “Is that Dennis Kelly of the Pull Tabs and Boss Fuel?” The boy nods a frantic affirmative, and I can see fear's cold sweat on his brow. I steel my resolve for the inevitable conclusion. “What about the guitarist for the Cobramatics? Is that Johnny Maguire, known around these parts as a columnist for the Agenda?” He stiffens, nods once, twice, hesitantly. “And the other guitarist, the one from Louisiana Hayride – isn't that Jami Wolloff from the Sleazies, formerly of Violent Anal Death?” The kid moans softly, but his eyes say yes. In my profession, you gotta read the body language sometimes.


    And what about the drummer from the Hayride? Isn't that Bob Giusti, from Dino Club? And hasn't he been in about a zillion local bands, going all the way back to Rash of Stabbings in the '80s?” The kid's eyes flicker off to the left, disturbing my concentration momentarily. I glance off in that direction, and there she is, the chick in the red feather boa. I just have time to recognize her before I feel a sudden pinch on my neck, like a hundred mosquito bites at once. I reach up with my other hand, and there's some kind of dart sticking out of my jugular.


    Shit. Tranquilizer darts. I shoulda known. I aim the gun at the lady, but my reflexes are already slowed. The shot goes wide and hits the streetlight. That's it. I'm done for. It's my last thought as I slump to the ground. I guess I'll never ... know for sure ... whether that drummer ... was really ... Bob ... Giusti ...


    ADDENDUM:

    The editors of the Agenda would like to take a moment to reassure you that there were no gunshots fired by hit men outside the Green Room on Saturday, March 12. The bands mentioned above, however, did actually rock the joint.

    /agenda


    Tue, 01 Mar 2005
    Yogi Berra Explains Jazz

    Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?
    Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, it's right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong.
    Interviewer: I don't understand.
    Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it.
    Interviewer: Do you understand it?
    Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it.
    Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?
    Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.
    Interviewer: What is syncopation?
    Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds.
    Interviewer: Now I really don't understand.
    Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

    /wordplay


    Sun, 06 Feb 2005
    Dragostei Din Tei
    Meet O-Zone. Now, meet their biggest fan.

    /articles


    Thu, 13 Jan 2005
    Jim Bray's SpamAssassin advice
    # first, filter thru spamassassin, locking with 'spamlock':
    :0f: spamlock
    | nice -15 /usr/bin/spamassassin
    
    :0:
    * ^X-Spam-Flag:.*YES
      {
    #If tagged as spam, report it, locking on 'spamreportlock':
       :0c: spamreportlock
       | nice -15 /usr/bin/spamassassin -r
     
    # Keep a copy in mail/spam so reports can be revoked 
    # with spamassassin -k in case of error (after a 
    # very short time of tuning the Bayesian with 
    # spamassassin -r, I've gotten no false positives
    # in months).
     
       :0
       mail/Spam
    }
    

    /geekery


    MaryBue.com
    Transplanted Minnesotan Mary Bue has taken over maintenance of the weblog I designed for her. The site template is a simple one, which essentially varies only in color from the basic Blosxom template.

    Read more ...

    /portfolio


    Tue, 02 Nov 2004
    Another Thrilling Tuesday Night

    I'm sitting at the public terminal in the AS220 Cafe as I type this. You'll find me here pretty often on Tuesday nights, where I work as House Manager for UM -- which is a jazz band with a revolving lineup. The core members are Hal Crook on the trombone and electronic effects box (he calls it the "trom-o-tizer"), Bob Gullotti on the drums (this week, Ferenk Nemeth is filling in admirably), Rick Peckham on the guitar and Dave Zinno on the upright bass. Nominally, I'm working the door for this event -- collecting the cover charge, stamping hands for re-entry, paying the band at the end of the night -- but tomight I am glued to the Drudge Report and the election results page at Yahoo.

    I voted early this morning. It felt great, but all day at work a sick fear has been growing inside me. At this point, I feel physically punched in the gut.

    Read more ...


    Mon, 01 Nov 2004
    Countdown To The Recount

    National Novel Writing Month started today, but this year I didn't even take a stab at writing any fiction. (Last year's attempt is still archived around here somewhere.)

    It's really not so difficult to write one thousand, six hundred and sixty-six (and two-thirds) words per day. It's just that with the election tomorrow occupying most of my conscious thought, I haven't given myself an opportunity to start writing about anything that's not really happening. Fiction can wait.

    I guess we all know who we're voting for in the presidential election, but how many of us have left any brain cells for state and local elections (I'm lucky enough to be in District 5, so I can endorse the Green Party's Jeff Toste for State Senate) let alone constitutional referenda and bond initiatives?

    With that in mind, I'm staying up a bit later than I ought tonight and typing up a quick guide to Rhode Island's ballot questions one through fourteen.

    Read more ...


    Question 3, DOT
    ------- Blind-Carbon-Copy
    
    From: tomfool at as220.org
    To: osaction at yahoogroups.com
    Subject: Question 3, DOT
    Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 18:59:33 -0400
    
    
    Hello all:
    
    Question 3 isn't on anyone's radar, really.  There are lots more
    significant issues than DOT to deal with this election.  But it is an
    issue that affects us here, and if you're wondering about what to do
    on that question, please vote against it.  Defeating these bonds will
    not mean an end to road construction, but it may mean the start of a
    return to sanity in the state budget.  I, for one, would prefer that
    my taxes go to public education or protecting the Bay instead of
    supporting the lifestyle of people who invest in state bonds.
    
    Here's an op-ed submitted to the Projo a while ago, but that probably
    won't see light of day before the election.  Since it won't, please
    help me by passing this along to anyone you think might be interested
    (short list, I know, but think...).
    
    There's more about this (and RIPTA's woes, too) in the latest issue of
    my newsletter, which can be found at whatcheer.net.
    

    Read more ...

    /articles


    Sat, 16 Oct 2004
    "Malnutrition of Information"

    Well, with my 32nd birthday looming on the horizon, I decided to update my weblog for the first time in approximately one million years.

    Read more ...


    Sun, 22 Aug 2004

    Providence, R.I., Panel Says Laws against Downloading Music Don't Help Artists






    Posted on Fri, Apr. 16, 2004


    Providence, R.I., Panel Says Laws against Downloading Music Don't Help Artists


    By Rick Massimo, Providence Journal, R.I. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

    The title of yesterday's panel discussion at Johnson & Wales was "Pirates of the Web: The Ethics of Downloading," but the panelists were in basic agreement that downloading music from the Internet is anything but piracy.

    In recent months, the Recording Industry Association of America, on behalf of the "Big Five" record labels, has launched wide-ranging prosecutions of thousands of downloaders across the country, accusing them of violating copyright law. All three panelists yesterday agreed that the laws, said to protect artists, do little more than feed corporations. One panelist called the prosecutions an attempt to maintain "complete control of an expanding marketplace" and another said they created "a culture of fear."

    The panelists included Umberto Crenca, the artistic director of AS220, the unjuried art space in Providence, a painter and a musician with The Panic Band; Jonathan Frankel, a lawyer based in Washington; and Jim Marks, a Web designer and musician based in Boston.

    Crenca opened the discussion by displaying two signs, reading "Lawyer-Free Zone" and "Free Mickey." His opening statement was "mostly stolen," he said, from the book Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig.

    Crenca traced the development of copyright law, and the lengthening lifespan of copyrights. The first copyrights, he said, were enacted in 1710 and lasted 14 years. In 1831, U.S. copyrights were for 42 years; in 1909, 56; today they last the life of the copyright holder plus 70 years.

    Crenca noted that the Walt Disney character of Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 for the short film Steamboat Willie, which was based on a Buster Keaton character named Steamboat Bill. While Disney paid nothing for the character he "stole" from, Crenca said, every time the Disney copyright on Mickey Mouse has been about to expire, copyright laws have been lengthened.

    "It's time to free Mickey," Crenca said. ". . . Intellect is not property."

    Marks contested the record-industry position that every song downloaded is a CD sale lost. He gave his own example, saying that when he was an active file sharer, he was familiar with trends in new music and bought 5 to 10 CDs a month. After the recent industry crackdown on file sharers, he said, he stopped downloading. Now he's out of the loop, he says, and buys only about 10 CDs a year.

    "This is what the RIAA doesn't get," Marks said. He said the record industry's production of new music has slumped exactly as much as record sales.

    The Internet and file-sharing services, Marks said, are "the best thing to happen to independent music." He said it was time to overthrow the industry model, in which record companies "act as a bank" that finances new releases (always getting their money back from the artists once sales start rolling in). Marks' band, Scissorkiss, made three CDs, and never made enough from sales to cover the pressing costs, he said. Now the band's music is available for free on its Web site.

    Frankel opened by saying that he agreed with much of what Crenca had said.

    "The system has to change. Downloading is here; it isn't going away."

    He sympathized with music fans, saying he doesn't like "buying a CD with 12 songs on it, and I hate 10 [of them]." But he warned the crowd of about 200, mostly students, that "for the time being, the law exists."

    He said he represents telecommunications companies, Internet service providers and educational institutions which provide Internet access. He explained that all these entities can be held liable for copyright-law violations caused by file sharing, and that the costs of those liabilities increase the costs of Internet access at schools such as Johnson & Wales.

    "If I were in college now, I'm sure I would file share," he said. "But the consequences are harsh."

    After their statements, the panelists exchanged views and took questions from the moderator and the audience. At one point, Marks said, "I'm disappointed we're not going to argue more."

    Crenca jumped on Frankel's warning and turned it into a call for civil disobedience. With universities' purchasing power, he said, they could demand that Internet service providers pressure Congress to change copyright laws.

    Marks said that in an age of corporate conglomeration, Sony, which runs a record label trying to stop the downloading of music, also makes computers that make downloading possible, and CD burners that facilitate copying.

    Marks and Crenca, the two artists on the panel, fielded questions on the impact of downloading on the economic prospects for their art.

    Crenca said that the concept of art for free doesn't bother him as an artist. "I've had three or four paintings stolen, and I've got boxes of CDs that I can't get rid of." While the thefts were hurtful experiences because the paintings were possessions, Crenca said, "culture thrives on this sort of sharing. . . . There is nothing original in the world."

    "I wish more of my music was downloaded," Marks said.

    Frankel asked Marks and Crenca what they would do if they were signed to record labels, and downloading was cutting into their sales.

    Marks began by repeating that he "absolutely rejected" the notion that downloading leads to a reduction in record sales, saying that people download music to check it out, then buy it. "If [people] like it, they'll pay for it."

    Marks and Crenca also attacked the notion that copyright law exists to protect artists.

    "The population that the RIAA is claiming to protect is minuscule," Crenca said, likening it to the number of athletes who sign multimillion-dollar contracts.

    Marks referred to Puff Daddy's 1998 hit, "I'll Be Missing You," which took from The Police's "Every Breath You Take." "I think it's bizarre that an artist can take a Police song and put new lyrics on it and win a Grammy, and I put a two-second Star Wars sample on one of my songs and I can't afford to get it pressed" because of the copyright fees.

    He also said the standard record contract pays artists roughly 20 cents on each CD sold. He told the audience to look at recording artists who sell millions of records, but are still making commercials and movies when, theoretically, they shouldn't need the money.

    "These people don't have the things they tell you they have. And the recording industry isn't protecting these people; they're using them," he said.

    Marks said he knew many musicians who still have to keep day jobs, but managed to tour Europe with their bands, thanks to the exposure they'd gotten over the Internet.

    And he said there was no reason artists couldn't navigate the music business by themselves, with a little legal help and some savvy.

    "We've perpetuated this idea that artists can't protect themselves," he said.

    -----

    To see more of the Providence Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.projo.com

    © 2004, Providence Journal, R.I. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.







    Wed, 16 Jun 2004
    Providence Machines, Issue 3
    Dave Fischer is back with another thrilling and cryptic edition of Providence Machines. I'm somewhat late in announcing the "Cold 2004" issue; we can only hope that Dave is hard at work on the "Warm 2004" issue, since it's already hotter than July!

    /links


    Photogallery
    Hand-coding static pages for thumbnail galleries of photos (such as the ones Rachel Pleasants is making for AS220's Fools Ball) can be a painfully tedious procedure. After testing and rejecting a few automatic thumbnail gallery generators, I did what should have been obvious all along and started looking for a blosxom plugin. Sure enough, someone had already done all the work. DeWitt Clinton had a simple plugin available for free download. Here's my first test to see whether I installed the plugin correctly:

    /photogallery


    Thu, 01 Apr 2004
    Christ!

    Zip The Pinhead writes:

    Hello all,
     
    It's a cheerful summer day here in Cebu, with the prospect of a pleasant weekend ahead. My morning class went well, my afternoon badminton game will probably go well, and so for some reason I decided to add a big old chunk of turmoil into it all by going to see The Passion of the Christ in between. Frankly, my main reason for wanting to see this movie was curiosity. I had read so much about it and seen so many stills that I figured I might as well make Mad Max even richer by going to see it. So, here are the personal observations of an atheist who has never taken a film theory class in her life:

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Sat, 27 Mar 2004
    Accidental Nostalgia
    Hey all, my weblog has been lagging lately but I'm just checking in with a tiny update.

    I've been spending all my blog-time helping my friend Rachel Pleasants are spiriting me away to Brooklyn today, to see Cynthia Hopkins' alt-country operetta "Accidental Nostalgia."

    So anyway, I gotta run. I'll probably check in with my NYC stories by Monday.


    Fri, 30 Jan 2004
    The Death of Milhous
    There were monks on the beach
    And we bound to the ocean
    Jumping and playing in the waves.
    We were happy.

    October 30, 1994
    There were punks and some freaks
    And we bound up the stairway
    Jumping and playing in the foam.
    We were evicted.

    October 31, 1996

    Read more ...

    /articles


    Sat, 29 Nov 2003
    Fort Thunder Featured In The Comics Journal
    Fort Thunder comics The new issue of The Comics Journal is almost entirely devoted to Olneyville's own Fort Thunder, including interviews with Mat Brinkman, Brian Chippendale and Brian Ralph (interview here), plus profiles of Paul Lyons, Leif Goldberg, and Jim Drain, a review of the "Paper Rodeo" comix newspaper, and an in-depth article entitled Fort Thunder Forever.

    There's even a tenuous connection to AS220 -- little more than a footnote, really -- a brief mention of Matt Obert's Evil Eyeballs comic.

    /articles


    Mon, 10 Nov 2003
    Chapter One: Xero's

    Rita parks her bike in front of the copy shop, fishing around in her army-surplus backpack for the U-lock. Her keys (on a chain around her neck, which she has to reach into her sweater and pull out) turn the cylinders and the lock pops open with a satisfying click. She hooks the U-shaped bar through one of those wrought-iron trash cans, trying to find the right angle to get one side of it through her spokes and the other side through the frame, which usually takes a few minutes, and then when she slaps the lock back on, it takes a bit of monkeying around to get the thing properly aligned so that the key will turn.

    Got it.

    Rita straightens up with a muffled sigh, rearranging the satchel on her shoulder and scrambling down the flight of cement steps that leads into the subterranean store. The sign in the window reads "Xero's" in blue corporate logotype, and a smaller version appears at the foot of the stairwell, in the shadow that falls across the door's plate glass.

    Same font.

    Inside Xero's, bright, blue-tinged fluorescent lights flicker in the unusually low drop ceiling. Rita scuffs her feet on the red carpet by the door as she walks past a row of computers, available for rent by the minute. What a ripoff. Nobody ever rents the computers. After all, this Xero's is practically on the campus of a pretty big university, and there are plenty of other computers on campus that she can use for free. She comes to Xero's for a different reason: to scam free photocopies.

    Read more ...

    /fiction


    Wed, 05 Nov 2003
    Kittens!

    Margaret Chevian of the Ocean State Free-Net recently posted an irresistible offer to their tech support list. In a refreshing change of pace from the usual discussions of spam filtering and log-file rotating, she wrote to say:

    Hi All

    I have seven beautiful black and white kittens, born weekend of Sept 12, ready for adoption! I'm keeping two so five are up for adoption. Feral mother was living at the library and I trapped her and brought her home in the hopes of taming her. Didn't know she was pregnant.

    Speak up! Spread the word!

    Thanks,
    Margaret

    /links


    Tandem Writing Exercise
    Tandem Writing reminds me of the kind of writing exercises we employed in the v.e.r.b.a.t.i.m. Potential Literature Collective. Unfortunately, in the example above, "Rebecca" and "Gary" can't quite seem to get it together.

    /links


    Well, come to the Meatrix

    WHOA. You'll need Flash for this one.

    /links


    Tue, 04 Nov 2003
    Providence Machines, Issue 2
    Dave Fischer writes:

    Hey.

    Issue 2 of my zine is out. Features lead article by Weasel Walter.

    http://www.cca.org/pm

    -dave

    /links


    Fri, 24 Oct 2003
    My Dinner With MegaHAL
    Here's an excerpt from a conversation I recently had with a bot called "MegaHAL" which learns to mimic your vocabulary and syntax as you talk to it. My comments are preceded by a ">" character.

    It would be great to teach MegaHAL the Abbott and Costello routine "Who's On First?" That's the kind of patterned conversation this bot would learn very well indeed.

    I'm waiting for the day when everybody at AS220 will have their own bot trained to take their place at the weekly Staff Meeting.

    Read more ...

    /geekery


    Mon, 01 Sep 2003
    Resident Currents

    Here's a tentative track listing for the forthcoming AS220 Residents' CD:

    1. Reverser - Paper
    2. I Love You And I Miss You - Mutual Of Oh My God
    3. <tfo> - It Doesn't Matter Anymore
    4. Bloodchild - It's Real
    5. Matt Obert - Bicycle Experiment
    6. Spogga - Manhattan
    7. Chris Warren - Collapse
    8. Serena Andrews - Under Carpets, Beneath Stairs
    9. Serena Andrews - Amplify
    10. Riddim Foundation - Prayer
    11. Joe Beats Conspiracy - Groupie
    12. Sayaka Starlite - Say It With A Kiss

    Read more ...

    /articles


    Thu, 21 Aug 2003
    Girl Power

    Zip the Pinhead writes:

    Last week was one of those weeks where nothing quite seemed to go right, and this week was looking like it was heading that way as well. Then something great happened.

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Sat, 09 Aug 2003
    Providence Machines
    Dave Fischer writes:

    Hey.

    The first issue of my new zine "Providence Machines" is available for download:

    http://www.cca.org/pm

    -dave dave@cca.org

    /links


    Fri, 01 Aug 2003
    Helpful for users of Mutt and procmail ...
        1.) Do you use procmail to sort your mail into folders?
    
    	# From my .procmailrc
    
    	:0:
    	* X-BeenThere: linux-elitists
    	elite
    
    	:0:
    	* ^FROM: sparkleb@example.com
    	ello
    
    	:0:
    	* ^FROM: ello@example.org
    	ello
    
    	:0:
    	* ^Subject:.*worldofwrong
    	wow
    

    Read more ...

    /geekery


    How to turn on SpamAssassin
        I just got this working, finally, like five minutes ago -- and I am
        happy to say that it has already flagged its first spam!
    

    Read more ...

    /geekery


    Wed, 23 Jul 2003
    Fever Diary

    Zip The Pinhead writes:

    9 pm, Sunday:
    I return home from an evening out, feeling mildly unwell. I blame it on the food and beer I have just consumed and go straight to bed.
     
    3am, Monday morning:
    I wake up in Antarctica. Why is it suddenly so cold in my room? Why did I go to sleep wearing only a light sarong, with the fan blowing on me? It was mistakes like that one that killed Captain Scott all those years ago...

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Sat, 07 Jun 2003
    sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install bible-kjv bible-kjv-text
      Well, I tried the Debian Bible:
    
    modus@gumzilla~:$ bible Prov2:11-15
    
    Proverbs 2
    
      11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
      12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh
    froward things;
      13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
      14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
      15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
    
      So my question is, when I find typos like the above, how hard is it to
    s/froward/forward/g and donate the correction to the codebase?
    
      Perhaps if I just tar -xvzf the kjv-bible-text package, I'll understand.
    
      Whoops, I have to gunzip the file '/usr/doc/bible-kjv-text/changelog.gz'.
    
      Whew, that was fun to read, but I haven't found the raw text ...
    
      Okay, using 'locate bible' I found /usr/bin/bible and
      /usr/lib/bible.data ... dismissing the binary as a blind alley I'll take
      a peek at the data file ... aargh! It's all hexadecimal!
    
      What to do?
    
    modus@gumzilla~:$ bible Prov2:11-15 | sed '/froward/ s//forward/g' >> proverb.txt
    
    
    Proverbs 2
    
      11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
      12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh
    forward things;
      13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
      14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the forwardness of the wicked;
      15 Whose ways are crooked, and they forward in their paths:
    
      Sweet dreams, linux-elitists.
    
    -- 
    /home/modus/.signature
    

    /geekery


    lexical-elitists
    Ben Finney  looked into the void, and said:
    > On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Modus Operandi wrote:
    > > So my question is, when I find typos like the above, how hard is it to
    > > s/froward/forward/g and donate the correction to the codebase?
    > 
    > One would think that "donate to the codebase" should at least suggest
    > getting the *source* for the package, instead of trying to modify the
    > *binary* package of an database version of the Bible.
    
      That really was just me being stupid (as opposed to trying to be funny.)
      Thanks for the tip.
    
    > =====
    > $ cd ~
    > $ apt-get source bible-kjv-text
    > Reading Package Lists... Done
    > Building Dependency Tree... Done
    > Need to get 1388kB of source archives.
    > Get:1 http://proxy testing/main bible-kjv 4.14 (dsc) [616B]
    > Get:2 http://proxy testing/main bible-kjv 4.14 (tar) [1388kB]
    > Fetched 1388kB in 56s (24.4kB/s)
    > dpkg-source: extracting bible-kjv in bible-kjv-4.14
    
      Well, now I see how easy it really is.
    
    > $ cd bible-kjv-4.14/
    > $ grep -c froward bible.rawtext 
    > 23
    > =====
    > 
    > Quite a common error.  Shall you submit a patch or shall I?
    
      They'll probably throw it out ... the reason the word is so common is
      because it's really supposed to be the word "froward" (see other
      replies in thread) which was apparently in common usage when the KJV
      was drafted. To : fro :: toward : froward. Those froward folks Solomon
      warns us about are turning away from something, presumably wisdom and
      righteousness, rather than moving "toward" it. So "froward" is not an
      error. It *is* a really funny word, though.
    
    -- 
    /home/modus/.signature
    _______________________________________________
    linux-elitists 
    http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists
    

    /geekery


    Sun, 01 Jun 2003
    The Streets Aren't For Dreaming Now

    Zip the Pinhead writes:

    This e-mail is about child prostitution. If you're uncomfortable with the topic or were planning on forwarding this to your children/grandmother/priest, you might want to delete rather than read this one.

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Sat, 31 May 2003
    Single in Cebu

    Zip the Pinhead writes:

    Here in the Philippines, there is a very high premium placed on finding a mate. People marry fast and young, sometimes too fast and too young. If, as I have, you have reached the ripe age of 23 without settling down, well-meaning friends and neighbors tend to feel that it is their sworn duty to find you someone. Many volunteers cope with this by announcing that they have boyfriends or girlfriends back home, and some just cave in to the pressure and end up on a series of awkward blind dates. For the first nine months of my service I had a semi-imaginary boyfriend named Kevin. He is a real person, but definitely not the man I intend to marry after this whole pesky "my organization" thing stops keeping us apart.

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Sat, 24 May 2003
    The House on Paradise Street

    Zip the Pinhead writes:

    Maayong buntag-

    I have now been in Cebu City at my new site for three days, and it's been eventful. I got here early on Wednesday morning and went straight to the center, where I spent the day getting oriented with the place. It's a night and day difference from Butuan. There is a lot of funding here (it's a relatively wealthy island), and local NGOs pitch in support and funding. There is a full-time therapist and even a nutritionist for the kids. Because of all the other support services in the city, there is a huge turnover in the population of kids at the center, with the average stay being only about a month (as opposed to over a year in Butuan). That makes it hard to plan continuing educational activities for them, but it also keeps the occupancy low and is better for the kids in the long run.

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Cebu Stories

    Zip the Pinhead writes:

    It's a beautiful morning in downtown Cebu, and I'm getting ready to go make paper. My new sitemates Mike and Becky are very excited about this project. Basically, you take all the crappy old scraps of paper you have lying around, mush them up, filter them through a screen, and in a mere twelve hours you end up with a piece of lumpy gray cardboard. What I will do with a bunch of lumpy gray cardboard, I have no idea, but at least it keeps me off the streets for a day or so.

    Read more ...

    /zip


    Wed, 14 May 2003
    "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
    I'm almost done with this book.

    /reviews/books


    Visual
    I plan to put my visual art here.

    /visual